2009 Film List (Reviews, Discussion & Tracking) (1 Viewer)

[Steve Christou]

I can't believe you removed your epic reviews Michael, I should have kept quiet.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I miss Michael's contributions, too

 

[Michael Elliott]

Steve, it wasn't anything you said. There's an alternate discussion going on in the "Track" thread about there not being enough talk and it seems sometimes the two threads go against one another in a negative way. We've got these two threads as well as official discussion threads, official review threads, DVD threads and then unofficial threads. There's a lot of threads for people to post in and it's starting to feel that a lot of discussions are being overlooked because things are just being posted in many different areas.

It's always a debate for me to decide which one to post a current review in but figured I'd try to start posting more in this one since I've always enjoyed reading it. At 12:05 tomorrow I will be seeing HALLOWEEN II and I want everyone to know how much I hate Zombie if I end up not liking the film.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt ">[/url]

On the other hand, the forum does have Official Review Threads, so there's a hesitation to post a full-throated review here. So the style that has sort of evolved has tended toward one paragraph reviews, and some movies inspire longer paragraphs than others.
[/QUOTE]
It works out well for me, because many of the films I see don't have official threads. Those are the one I tend to write up here. Speaking of which:

[i]Sin Nombre[/i], one of the best films I've seen in 2009, hits DVD on Sept. 1. I did a capsule review in this thread, but a much longer review of the film and disc is

 

[Michael Reuben]

The Baader Meinhof Complex: This was the one finalist for the 2009 foreign language film Oscar that I hadn't yet seen.

Director Uli Edel has had a strange career. His film of Last Exit to Brooklyn was an American film that felt like it came from somewhere else, but it sort of worked. His Madonna disaster Body of Evidence is still ridiculed (rightly so, IMO). He's done solid yeoman's work on Tales from the Crypt, Oz and Homicide. But The Baader Meinhof Complex is like nothing else I've ever seen from Edel. It's a difficult film, and probably frustrating for someone with zero background in German history of the 1970s. Although the film does cram in a lot of information, it covers so much ground that, even at 2:30 running time, you really have to concentrate to keep up.

The short version is that the Baader Meinhof group (so named for Ulrike Meinhof, a journalist, and Andreas Baader, a student activist), a/k/a the "RAF" or "Red Army Faction", were the Weather Underground of West Germany. But they went on a lot longer and did a lot more damage. Edel's film is a whirlwind docudrama that effectively recreates the mood and energy of the time and circumstances that made such a movement possible and even popular. Martina Gedeck (so brilliant in The Lives of Others) plays Meinhof with just the right level of enigmatic distance that you never quite know what motivates her (no one did). Moritz Bleibtreu (the man Lola ran to save in Run, Lola, Run) play Baader as the quintessential bad-boy outlaw. You can't stand him, but you understand why he fascinates the people around him. But the real standout is the beautiful Johanna Wokalek, who plays Gudrun Ennslin, the preacher's daughter who was the Bonnie to Baader's Clyde. She's the most scarily committed revolutionary in the whole group.

Bruno Ganz plays the law enforcement officer who finally manages to capture them, but he's also the one who understands that capturing them is only the beginning. It's a scary film, because it puts you right in close with people who emerged from comfortable and privileged circumstances with the unshakeable conviction that extreme violence was the only legitimate response to the ills of society. Merely despising such people, as Ganz's character tries, patiently but pointlessly, to explain to his subordinates, is not an effective way to defeat them.

 

[Michael Reuben]

I saw three genuinely interesting films this weekend, but I don't have time right now to write them up in detail. I'll just say that:

1. Amreeka is a fresh take on the classic tale of the immigrant's struggle in America; by keeping its aspirations modest, it far exceeds them;
2. Extract is my favorite Mike Judge film to date, even more so than Office Space, but people looking for big gags and punchlines will be disappointed; even though some fairly outrageous things happen, the real wit in this film is subtle and hidden, and it's all the more wicked because of it;
3. Big Fan is a tour de force for Patton Oswalt, who is scarily convincing as a loser whose passion for the NY Giants is second to none; but Oswalt and writer/director Robert Siegel (who wrote The Wrestler) always manage to keep the audience's sympathy, which is pretty remarkable given some of the extreme things Oswalt's character does.

 

[Steve Christou]

And I saw one not all that interesting horror film by Sam Raimi, who 25 years ago caused an uproar in this country with the Evil Dead. Newspapers branded it and other violent horrors as Video Nasties and they were taken off the shelves, horror movies were banned left and right, mostly crappy Italian horrors from schlockmeister Lucio Fulci. Which didn't bother me much because I had a preference for the more elegant and classy Hammer Horrors, and the Universal Horror classics before that.

Anyway Sam Raimi returned to the horror scene with Drag Me to Hell and I thought it was rubbish. He has substituted gore for frequent shock cuts to the old hags face, and by frequent I mean every 5 minutes which really started to get tedious, especially when accompanied by loud shrieking noises. Raimi also likes to have things fly into peoples mouths, whether it be vomit, drool, a fly or an eyeball. I didn't like the climax and the actress playing the lead was unsympathetic so you don't really care what happens to her. Raimi should stick to Spider-Man, he still has an 80's horror mentality and frankly it's all a bit silly, amateurish and dated. 2 out of 5.

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by Michael Reuben

Extract is my favorite Mike Judge film to date, even more so than Office Space, but people looking for big gags and punchlines will be disappointed; even though some fairly outrageous things happen, the real wit in this film is subtle and hidden, and it's all the more wicked because of it;

I know most of the world hates Ben Affleck but I had alot of fun seeing him in a good comedic role for the first time in years.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TravisR



I know most of the world hates Ben Affleck but I had alot of fun seeing him in a good comedic role for the first time in years.

I don't know about most of the world, but he does seem to attract a lot of of online pettiness, none of which I take seriously. Anyone who can make a film as good as Gone, Baby, Gone has my respect. And yes, Affleck is very funny in Extract, particulary because he and Jason Bateman play so well off each other. For me there was even an extra "meta" layer watching the real Mr. Jennifer Garner opposite the pretend one from Juno (and I'll go out on a limb and suggest that Judge knew that was there and exploited it).

It's just dawning on me how good Bateman really is. He's so relaxed and unshowy that you can easily overlook the skill underpinning his performances. But if you think about how carefully he calibrates what he does, and how one notch up or down would throw off the whole scene, you start to realize that he's one of those actors who are so good at acting that people don't realize they're acting.

I also liked seeing Mila Kunis as a thief and liar (this isn't a spoiler, BTW, since it's shown in the opening scene). It's a much more believable character than the idealized angel of mercy she had to play in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I wanted to spend a night at the drive-in one more time before the season ended, so I went to the Malta Drive-In for a double feature:

Inglourious Basterds is a masterpiece, if you look at it as a Errol Flynn picture with occupied WWII France as the scenery rather than as a bonafide World War II picture. Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent and Christoph Waltz are the power centers of this film, and each carries his or her storyline with confidence, even bravado. Growing up with a father who loves war movies, I loved how much the movie felt like a war picture. At the same time, Tarantino's few indulgences to his regular style feel misplaced; Samuel L. Jackson's narration comes out of nowhere and the hero indentification title cards feel more Grindhouse than this film. Scenes like the one in the farmhouse and at the restaurant hint at something far more interesting than his usual onslaught of style.
On a presentation note, this was by far the best drive-in projection I have ever experienced. It helped that the days have gotten shorter so that it was dark in time, and it helped that the drive-in is rural enough that light polution doesn't intrude. Even setting those advantages aside, the projection was remarkably in focus and far superior to many of the regular cinema presentations I've experienced.

The Final Destination failed to live up to even its predecessors' lackluster standards. At this point, we know the series is going to be self-parody. But we at least expect Death's vengence to be suitably inventive, and plausibly accidental. This time around, the victim count is much lower and Death's hand is far more actively present. It was never going to be Shakespeare, but it didn't have to be so lazy. Would the 3D version have improved it? I doubt it; the best it could have done is help disguise some of the flaws. The laziest, shallowest, least intelligent entry yet.

 

[Steve Christou]

Sick! Disturbing! Unwatchable! At least one newspaper here wanted Lars Von Triers controversial new film banned. I watched Antichrist last night and it left me bored more than anything else. It has nothing to do with the Bible, 666, Damien or the end of the world (sadly, I wish it was).

There are just two actors in the film, Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, the story simple, the film opens with the couple fornicating with graphic close ups of genitalia, meanwhile their baby boy climbs up to the window and falls to his death, this is the opening few minutes of the film and sets up the main story. The couple are overcome with grief and guilt and they both go a little mad, particularly the wife. Thats basically the whole story, the nastiness comes from what they do to each other, I'll spoilerise a couple of the more disturbing scenes that come up -

There are graphic shots of an erect penis ejaculating blood and close ups of a clitorise being snipped off with a rusty scissors. There is also a shot of a trapped fox eating itself.
Not a film for the faint hearted. But the most disturbing film I've ever seen is still William Friedkin's The Exorcist, I saw it at a young age in a rerun back in the 70's and it haunted me back then, I've never seen a film since to match that for pure demonic evil. It's also my favourite horror movie.

 

[Justin_S]

Gamer - in a not too distant future, the world is obsessed with "Slayers", a game that allows it's players to control real death row inmates in a real world gaming environment. If they win a certain amount of games, the inmate receives a full pardon. The star inmate is Kable. He's won more games than any other "Slayer" has even come close to, and he's close to getting out. However, the game's billionaire creator, Ken Castle, has no intention of letting that happen. Mixing elements of The Running Man with bizarre game playing scenarios, outlandish events and a sizable chunk of social commentary, Gamer is an interesting if not always successful little action picture. The commentary on things such as people living reality through gameplay and the depths to which society will sink for entertainment are on the mark. Aside from "Slayers", Castle also created an earlier game called "Society", which is sort of like "Sim City", only with real people. Gamers control people in the game and make them do whatever disgusting act they want, such as burning themselves, sex fantasies and the like. I personally felt these were the most effective segments in the film, including a perfect use of the song, "The Bad Touch". Michael C. Hall was a big draw for me, as he is terrific on one of my favorite TV shows, Dexter. As expected, he was the standout among the cast. His Ken Castle is an over-the-top megalomaniacal nutcase, and I enjoyed every moment he was on screen. Alas, he wasn't on screen as often as I expected going in. We naturally get much more of Gerard Butler, who isn't much of an actor from what I've seen. He's tolerable here, but nothing special. We also get a few smaller roles for the likes of Kyra Sedgwick, Pathology's Milo Ventimiglia, Terry Crews, who feels out of place in a non-comedic role, and terrific Drag Me to Hell actress, Alison Lohman. The action itself is underwhelming, as it suffers from the all too common quick cutting/shaky cam routine. I have to admit, that doesn't bother me as often as it does most people, but it did here. There's also one ridiculous scene involving Kable filling up a truck's fuel tank with something other than fuel. Regardless, while a flawed film, it does have some solid material to offer. It just could have been wrapped a little tighter.

Whiteout - based on a graphic novel, this tells of Carrie Stetko, a U.S. Marshal on assignment in Antarctica due to her own personal exile. Nearing the end of her tenure in the great white south, she gets sucked into a murder mystery when a body is found on the ice. I have never read the graphic novel, and if it was as poorly done as this film, I never care to. Pitiful, repetitive dialogue (count the "Oh my God"s), generic music blaring over the scenes on an almost nonstop basis, stiff performances and a mystery that is far from mysterious. The resolution of said mystery leaves you thinking "That's it?" more than anything. The director also beats us over the head with things that would best be discovered later on, but since we know before the characters, it sucks out any possible suspense there might have been. You can also spot one of the villains based on an old TV show rule. Bad, bad movie. Skip it.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Tyson (2008)

Hmm...let's remake JAWS but without a shark. Let's make THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST but without Jesus in it. Let's make a XXX without sex. Or, let's make a 3D movie that features very little 3-D. I expected a bad movie to be saved by the fun 3-D effects but the effects weren't used enough and the 75-minute running time could have been cut down by an hour and it still would have been boring.

 

[Steve Christou]

I saw District 9 recently, wasn't that impressed with it. A spaceship appears over Johannesburg in 'Sath Afreeka' and the aliens turn out to be pathetic insect-like creatures looking for a home or something, anyway 20 years later the area where they live has turned into a ghetto and people have lost interest in the creatures dubbed 'prawns', as if that would ever happen in the real world. Thats what I didn't find believable in this film, that aliens would land on Earth and after the initial excitement and fear, we would lose interest in them. Yeah sure.



The effects were reasonably good, a lot of the film is shot in shaky-cam and the lead actor has never acted before but does a pretty good job of it even if he does look like some geezer they found walking past the set one day. The film has a dreary, grotty look and feel to it, but than it is set in alien slums! [snort] It's not the most pleasant film, though I did like some of the violence, the creatures, pathetic though they be, can tear a man apart in seconds. And I like the fact they only speak in their clickety cluck alien tongue (did they have tongues?) and not in perfect English, like the lizard aliens in [COLOR= rgb(255, 0, 0)]V[/COLOR] did (hey I remembered V, was a big fan of that 80's mini-series)

District 9 is an interesting alien invasion film with a twist, but I didn't like it much. I'll give it 3 out of 5 for attempting something different. A rental.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Comments on Whip It are here.

Zombieland is a riot, and looking at the official threads confirms I'm not the only one who thinks so. My favorite things about it are what make it different from Shaun of the Dead. The joke in Shaun was that there wasn't much difference between the zombies and the spaced-out city dwellers, so that you had those funny shots of Simon Pegg wandering past zombies and not even realizing it. In Zombieland you get Jesse Eisenberg and his rules, but the joke is that it's no less hostile a world than the one he inhabited before the apocalypse; he just has to rewrite the rules. It's the perfect American zombie comedy that has only loners surviving, even if the leading one is a nerd who can't get laid.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Since last update:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: The IMAX Experience. I'd promised to see the sixth Harry Potter movie again with a friend of mine who had no one else to go with... but he moved out of state before we got the chance. When I went to visit him in eastern Massachusetts, we managed to catch the very last showtime before Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs took over the screen. Some little kid pulled the fire alarm about a minute and a half into the film; they managed to get everybody seated again and resume the film, but I missed half the 3D portion exploiting the interruption for a bathroom break. Overall the experience confirmed two things: 1) fake, computer-generated 3D just doesn't work for live action. It was disorienting with Superman Returns, and it was disorienting here. The only thing effective about the 3D was the opening Warner Bros logo, which seems to fly out into the audience. 2) the film holds up on repeat viewings. What stood out on the second viewing is that many of Yates's flaws apparent in Order of the Phoenix are apparent here as well, in a milder and less damaging form. Most apparent is the editing issues: both film start out pretty choppy, with the second half paced and edited much smoother than the first half. It's still right up there with Goblet of Fire as the best of the series.

The Big Lebowski. The mainy reason for visiting my friend, however, was the Boston leg of the Lebowskifest: Speed of Sound tour. I had work on Monday, so we skipped the bowling on Sunday and just went to the screening Sunday night at the Boston House of Blues. Great atmosphere; several people were dressed up in character, including a very convincing Sam Elliot-as-the-Stranger. They had fold out chairs filling the floor, and waitresses toured the crowd selling White Russians. After a truly awful keyboard-and-drums band playing vaguely ominous Creedence covers left the stage, an impressive Dude impersonator took the stage with the festival organizers, dressed in giant Bowling Pin costumes. They psyched the crowd up, played a prerecorded message from Jeff Bridges for the tour (on the set of TR2N), and then started the movie. We're talking an SD-DVD, projected on a 30-foot screen designed for band's backing visuals, to a crowd in folding chairs. And it will remain forever the definitive viewing of The Big Lebowski for me. Every joke lands, people yelling out lines like at a Rocky Horror Picture Show midnight show, others cheering Walter's rants. Just a really good time, with my favorite Coen Brothers picture.

Zombieland. I have a friend who loves cheesy horror films. We went to college in the same town and used to catch lots of them. Now we live about an hour away from each other, and months can go by without talking. But I knew we had to see this one together. Originally written as a television pilot, first-time director Ruben Fleischer tacked on a gore-riffic climax in an amusement park and created perhaps the most enjoyable zombie picture I've ever seen, certainly the first one I'd like to see a sequel to. The differences Michael draws between this and Shaun of the Dead are apt, and say more about the culture each originates from that they do about the genre itself. Instead of a satire of dreary English urban monotony, Zombieland is a celebration of that quintessentially American ideal of "rugged individualism". The visual way Columbus's rules of survival -- which were probably largely the same even before one bad burger unleashed the zombie apocolypse -- are integrated into the scenery reminded me of the creative subtitle design for Night Watch: Nochnoi Dozor, only these are even better. It's a punchline that never seems to get old. And suprisingly, the entertaining zombie slaughter takes a back seat to the characters, who are sufficiently developed to grow on you. Woody Harrelson is the undeniable standout, Jesse Eisenberg continues to demonstrate the versatility of his schtick across genres, and Emma Stone succeeds at being both sexy and unapologetically calculating. Abigail Breslin continues her impressive track record of making adult films without having to play overly adult characters. And as someone who hates celebrity cameos in television and film, I can tell you all that this movie has the most effective cameo appearance I've ever seen. This one might just squeeze its way into the bottom of my Top Ten list for 2009.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Added:
The Invention of Lying. A friend was in town for the holiday weekend and wanted to see it, so we caught a matinee. The trailers hadn't left me particularly interested, but the film itself pleasantly surprised me. Setting aside the fact that a world completely devoid of untruth looks nearly identical to our own world, the movie mines the conception for all its worth. There is no religion, since presumably all of the world's prophets have actually been dirty, filthy liars. Names are descriptive rather than inspirational or aspirational. The daily paper is "The Daily Paper". Romance has been reduced to pairing off based on genetic suitability. People are harsh. Amidst this environment, we meet Mark Bellison: a fat loser with a snub nose. He lost his job, his romantic life is severely constrained by his genetic shortcomings, and he's on the verge of homelessness. At the bank, when he goes to cash out his account, something in his brain clicks into place, and he tells the world's first lie. The surprise is how he chooses to use this new power to redefine his life. His aims are generally decent, and largely selfless. As the first liar, he is also the first prophet; the movie may argue that all religions are false, but it doesn't argue that religious is meaningless or negative. His campaign to win the heart of Anna, the genetically superior woman whom he longs for, is almost entirely honest. He avoids lying about the big things, even when lying would certainly win her over. He doesn't want to trick his way into a relationship. Anna, quite against her intentions, falls in love with Mark but can't get over how short, fat, and snub-nosed their children would certainly be. Like Ghost Town, this film is surprisingly earnest in the best sort of way.

 

[Steve Christou]

I did see both The Taking of Pelham 123 remake and Public Enemies at the weekend, and I enjoyed both films. Travolta was good value as the villain in Pelham 123, Tony Scott's new film was a little easier on the eyes than past efforts with some shots staying up on screen for 3 or 4 seconds, wahay! But as usual with the recent glut of remakes the original is still best, in this case they should have gone with the old adage 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' and the 1974 classic was not broke.



Public Enemies has plenty of bang for your money, and I do mean bang it looks like the sound department accentuated each gun shot so it sounds like someone fired a gun right next to your ear, there's no nodding off while this film is on. I thought Johnny Depp was a little wooden as Public Enemy Number One and moody Christian Bale barely registers in his one note role as John Dillinger's nemesis. The director is the star of Public Enemies, I wouldn't rank it as one of Mann's best films but it's still a good solid gangster movie. Recommended.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Since last time:
Surrogates. A perfectly decent scifi thriller starting both young Bruce Willis and old Bruce Willis through a mostly effective special effects twist. The plot itself was more dense than I'd expected it to be, though I wish the concept of surrogates had been more coherently fleshed out. Something like 99 percent of the world's population uses surrogates, but they never explained how the millions of poor in countries like India and Pakistan could afford them. Even considering the economies of scale at play with such massive market penetration, I can't imagine the interface chair and robot are THAT cheap. How do surrogate users keep their muscles from atrophying? Getting up every couple hours to take a piss or grab something out of the fridge doesn't cut it. Under what grounds would anyone have standing to bring a case before the SCOTUS about surrogate use? I will say that the theater, located on the outskirts of Plattsburgh, was surprisingly modern and comfortable. Easily the nicest North Country multiplex I've been to.

Next Day Air. My old roommate and I used to be huge "Scrubs" fans and wanted to see this because of Donald Faison. We never got around to it, so I finally decided to Redbox it last night. A fun comedy of errors (a package delivered to 302 instead of 203 sets off all sorts of problems) that is a little bit too self-conciously "urban." A very solid cast, including Debbie Allen in a fun cameo as the mother of Faison's character. Worth the $1.08.

 

[Steve Christou]

Watched one of the best films of the year last night, Pixar's 'Up'. IMO the one sure bet at next years Oscars. Ten films, ten hits, seems like Pixar can do no wrong.

2008's 'Wall-E' bored me a bit though I did enjoy some of the shipboard shenanigans, the robots left me cold. 'Up' caught my attention from the start and didn't let go till the finish, a sad, funny, thrilling adventure. The best Pixar movie since 'The Incredibles'. 5 out of 5.